Revenant
by Bohemian Bird
Summary: Cordelia had never suspected there was something strange about her cousin's family. They seemed just as normal as hers, if a little more distant than most. That all changed one stormy night in October, when she's suddenly thrust into the world of the supernatural. But there's always a silver lining, and Cordelia's is finding someone who will love her - always and forever. Femslash


**revenant | chapter one**

**ap·pa·ri·tion** /ˌapəˈriSH(ə)n/ **(n.): **_not yet corpses. still, we rot._

* * *

_New Orleans, Late October 2010_

New Orleans was _wet_, soaked through to her bones with monsoon rain, her streets empty and abandoned as her inhabitants struggled to find shelter from the storm. Every shop, bar, and restaurant in the city was over-crowded, patrons huddled in the corners and the staff taking longer shifts just to avoid having to step out into the night.

In a warm, homey bar called Rousseau's, one sleepy-eyed bartender shivered from the cold as another patron stumbled into the bar, bringing with them a gust of freezing wind and a new puddle dripping onto the hardwood floor.

"Oh, my _god_," she groaned in despair. The storm had been raging for almost a month now, with no stop to the unforgiving rain. Somehow, as strange as it seemed, the levies hadn't broken, and the city hadn't flooded. Cordelia, for one, didn't care if the rain stopped or not, as long as her customer's stopped dragging it inside with them.

She knew she should be leaving – her shift behind the bar was over and it wasn't like the rain would let up anytime soon – but there was something holding her back, a voice inside her telling her to stay, that there was something lurking out there, in the night.

Paranoia, probably, or the return of a childish fear of the dark.

Sleep would probably shake her out of it.

That's all she needed.

"G'night, Camille! I'll see you tomorrow!" Cordelia called to her coworker, a pretty blonde therapist-in-training. Camille waved her away with a small smile as she slid a drink over to the new patron – a middle aged business woman who looked far out of place in Rousseau's.

Cordelia shrugged on her heavy corduroy jacket and headed out into the night. A gust of frigid air hit her as soon as she stepped out the door, sliding down the back of her neck and underneath her jacket.

The rain hit her next – in seconds she was soaked through, her thick Henley clinging to her skin uncomfortably. There was no way she wouldn't catch a cold after this.

"Brilliant," she griped under her breath as she crossed the street. It was a good thing her hole-in-the-wall apartment was only a couple blocks away; with this storm and the bad juju still creeping down her spine, she didn't want to be out in the dark any longer than she had to.

The night itself was almost beautiful – warm light shining out into the rain from happy homes and loud bars, the streets themselves entirely abandoned – just her out alone in the storm, defying this immense force of nature with her mere presence.

She could almost appreciate it, if it weren't for that awful feeling coming back in full force, as if someone was stalking her from the shadows, watching her every move. It came like a screaming in her head – building and building and building up louder and louder, _get away get away get away –_ until it came to a head splitting crescendo, so loud she didn't notice the dark figure looming behind her, magic flickering at its fingertips as it reached towards her.

For a second, she could see the street-lamps blur, wavering into darkness, before she followed after them into oblivion.

**ooooo**

The first thing she was aware of was pain – a splitting headache pulsing at her temples and a sharp pain in her back, like something had been digging into it for just a little too long, just long enough for it to go from uncomfortable to outright painful. The second was the smell, mold and decay, rotting wood and rotting food.

Her eyes felt like they were glued shut. They didn't want to open at first, but there's nothing like fear of the unknown and a spike in adrenaline to motivate a person. It felt like it took all of her energy, but Cordelia finally forced her eyes open.

She was in a dark, damp room. The sole window was boarded up with rotting boards, the faint wisps of light seeping in through the cracks revealing a splattering of mold in every corner. An audacious vine had grown up in between the floor boards, the gray paint peeling off the walls in patches like sunburned skin.

She tried to stand up, only to be stopped halfway by heavy chains, weighing her down and tethering her to a broken radiator, the twisted metal that had been digging into her back. The chains clanged loudly against the radiator, disrupting the heavy silence that had settled over the tiny, rotting room.

"Oh, god," she whispered, the implications of her surroundings finally catching up with her. She choked down a sob. _Why was this happening to her?_

A sudden heavy thud shocked her out of her misery. The door had slammed open hard enough for it to rebound off the wall beside it.

The people who entered were not what she'd expected – a middle aged soccer mom and a tall teenage boy. The boy's face was set into a heavy frown, like the weight of what they'd done, what they were going to do, had dragged his features down until they looked as solemn as the grave.

The woman, however, just looked angry.

"Cordelia LaMontagne," the woman bit out. "Did you think you could remain hidden from us forever?"

_What?_

"What are you _talking_ about?" Cordelia sobbed.

"Where's your cousin? We know she's in the city, or she'd never be able to sustain this sort of power."

_"What?"_

The woman snarled, _"Where's Davina Claire?!" _Her mouth twisted into a gruesome frown as she thrust out her hand and _twisted._

Cordelia choked on a scream – it felt everything inside her had been crushed all at once, like the woman had wrapped her hand around her esophagus and pulled. It felt like she was dying.

"Please," she gasped out, one hand pressed to her chest, trying to ease the burning pressure. "Please, stop!"

"Tell me where Davina Claire is, and I will!"

"I don't know! Please," Cordelia sobbed, "Please, Davina's been missing for weeks, I don't know!"

"You're lying!"

"I'm not!"

**ooooo**

Across the city, a young witch tossed in her sleep, tears running down her face as a vision twisted her pleasant dream into a nightmare.

_A cramped room, almost too small for the three people inside- _

_her cousin sprawled out across the floor, manacles chaining her to a piece of twisted and broken metal- _

_a strange woman chanting- _

_Cordelia screaming in pain- _

Davina gasped awake, the remnants of her vision clinging to her mind like cobwebs. That witch, Cordelia-

_Cordelia!_

"Marcel!" she screamed for her guardian, the sharp panic she felt seeping into her voice, "Marcel, hurry!"

**ooooo**

The woman's face twisted in anger. No matter how hard she had questioned, the girl had failed to answer her. She'd tried, of course – no ordinary young woman was trained to withstand torture, especially not the special techniques that witches had available to them – but it seemed the cousins were distant. The girl hadn't even seen the renegade witch for years.

_What a waste_.

Nevertheless, it wasn't as if she could just let the girl _leave._ She knew too much, had seen too much. It wouldn't do for the authorities, or Marcel, to get wind of what had happened here.

With a gruesome smile, the witch raised her hands once more and began chanting.

**ooooo**

The witch and her son had left almost an hour ago. Maybe more, maybe less. Time had become meaningless.

Whatever that last curse had been, it felt like death, like she had died and come alive a thousand times in an instant.

It was killing her.

Cordelia could feel the blood oozing down her face, she could taste it in the back of her throat each time she coughed – the witch hadn't let up on her spells no matter how hard she begged, growing more and more creative with the pain as time went on. She probably would have died even without the final curse.

Because Cordelia was definitely dying – if the coughing-up-blood thing didn't do it, the cold, damp air would give her a fever, and she wasn't not sure she had the strength to fight it off.

Just as her vision began going blurry, the feathery darkness creeping in on the edges of her vision, the door slammed open again, the weak hinges snapping from the force. It slumped against the wall morosely. A tall, shadowy figure stood in the doorway. Cordelia's eyes couldn't seem to focus on its face. Then, in mere moment, it – no, _he _– was kneeling by her side.

She blinked sluggishly. If she had the energy to jump or scream bloody murder, she would've. Maybe she was just losing time. That was a thing, right? People lose time when they're dying.

His face was gentle, but his eyes looked angry. Cordelia couldn't tell if it was directed at her or the people who'd killed her.

The stranger raised his wrist to his mouth and bit down hard enough to puncture his own skin.

She knew she should be freaking out – _because what the actual hell was he doing_? – but she couldn't summon up the emotion, the shock finally kicking in.

He covered her mouth with his bloody wrist, the thick, coppery scent of his blood drowning out the smell of mold. The dark liquid dribbled into her mouth and for a second she thought she would throw up, but then the feathery darkness that'd been edging in on her vision took hold, swallowing her whole.

* * *

_[A/N: No beta we die like 16th century illiterate peasants._

_(Fair warning,, this fic is going to be Very Gay, thank you and goodnight))_

_*The amount of research I did for this,,, y'all would not believe._

_*I do alter some settings, etc. for The Drama – nothing huge, but writing is a different media than television, so I feel it's necessary to changing up some small things to make things more interesting for y'all_

_*Originally the harvest ritual is some undisclosed time in 2011 (as far as I could find), but to have an official date + to make it more 'witchy', I've decided for it to occur on Mabon in 2010 – the Autumn Equinox and the harvest sabbat - and the reaping to occur on Ostara 2012. Mabon was on September 22 in 2010, btw. And Ostara 2012 is March 20th and is a time of rebirth_

_*The timeline of The Originals makes 0 sense, Hayley is pregnant for over a year? She's imprisoned by the witches on April 30th, 2011 (and they can already hear the heartbeat, so she's over a month pregnant), and then Hope is born May 2nd, 2012? So, I'm taking the timeline into my own hands (don't worry, the plot will still be there, it'll just make more sense now)._

_And that's all I have to say so far, so voila! Hope y'all enjoy._

_Much love and appreciation, Bohemian Bird]_


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